The Circle of Life
by Great King of Evil
Summary: Every time he dies, Naruto loops back in time to a reality where things always are slightly different. Needless to say, he's getting tired of the worlds where his counterpart was female. Slight squick warning, future smut. Female Naruto/male Kyuubi
1. Chapter 1

**Trying something a bit new after some burnout from Shapeshifter. More smut-oriented (nothing in this chapter, but for the future be warned). ~Great King of Evil**

* * *

Daylight broke through the window. Lying on a bed, a blonde rolled around, groaning, clearly unwilling to get up. Several minutes passed, before the figure suddenly sat up. The blonde quickly used his fingers to feel around his crotch, until...

"Nooooo!" She wailed at the lack of familiar bits, her cry kept low enough to not attract attention from any who might hear from beyond her bedroom walls.

**Yes!** A similar cry echoed in her mind, though it was more from enthusiasm than from despair. It was rather obvious to the girl that the voice was male, and her head sunk.

"You're male again, huh? How many times does that make it with this gender set-up?" She asked, shifting in her bed, as she looked at her surroundings. With an odd feeling in her gut, she realised the room was well adorned with furniture, and was simply too large to be in an apartment. That meant she either had far larger living quarters than the usual, or somebody was looking after her in this life.

**Thirty-three**, the voice responded. It then paused, and lifetimes of experience allowed the girl to feel the sensation of her inner demon pausing to collect his thoughts. **Well, congratulations, Kasumi-chan, your parents are both alive here.**

"Oh?" Naruto asked, and grimaced as he realised he would have to adapt his personal perspective again. After three straight loops spent as a girl, he had finally given up on trying to stubbornly hold onto his male perspective. Now, she went with the flow as things went along. Still, it was hard to adapt to the opposite gender after every change. If she turned male in her next life, it would take weeks to become fully comfortable with possessing a manhood again. Not to mention getting used to new names on the occasion. In over a hundred lives as a male, she had only been given four different names, while she had over two dozen different names in her fifty-odd lives as a female. "Any idea how that occurred?"

There was another pause, and a sensation like ruffling through a stack of papers went through her mind. It weirded her out, and she could never get used to it, never mind it happening only a few times a lifetime. After a few minutes, the Kyuubi no Kitsune replied, **The Sandaime used the Shiki Fuin in this dimension. Your mother survived this dimension's Kyuubi being torn out of her body, and the two had a cordial enough relationship that he gave her some of his chakra so she could survive before he went to attack Konoha.**

"So jiji is dead here, huh?" Kasumi mused, as she threw aside the top part of her cover blanket, exposing her torso. Sighing at the new view of two very small but developing mounds of fat on her chest, she poked one of them, "Huh. Boobs." Amusement radiated from the other. "Yeah yeah, ero-kitsune, take a look all you want. You'll be getting to see them a lot, I promise you that." Tweaking one of her nipples out of idle curiosity, she rubbed her fingers on it until the nub hardened up.

**Mmmm...**came the Kyuubi's thoughts. It was rather obvious he had adjusted from being a female in the last time to being a male this time around. Hormones were funny like that. **You've already decided then?**

"Yeah,yeah, you'll be my lover this time around" Kasumi mumbled quietly in a light-hearted tone, throwing aside the rest of her bedcover. It was rather obvious her counterpart liked to sleep in the nude, as she looked to the carpeted floor beside her bed to find several pairs of lingeries and bra scattered about. Messy, too. Getting up, she stalked around for a mirror, before finding it above a nearby cabinet that was obviously used for makeup. Kasumi looked at herself in the mirror, observing her body. She was obviously young, perhaps not yet entered into the Academy (if she even went, being the Hokage's daughter), her extremely small breasts being a sign of early puberty. Unlike the last time she was a girl, she took more after her father than her mother, with blonde hair and heavy-set cheekbones. Her eyes were a darker shade of blue than the cerulean she was used to, however, a few tints close to marine blue. And of course, her always present three whisker marks on each cheek.

Sighing, she decided to get to the purpose she had come to the mirror for. Sending a little bit of chakra to her stomach, the seal that held the Kyuubi no Kitsune was revealed. She eyed the swirling kanji characters that made up the **Hakke Fuin**, looking for any changes from the standard seal that this dimension's seal might have. "Nothing different here," She noted. "When do you want me to free you?"

Kyuubi was quick to answer this time, with Kasumi's looking in the mirror having given him plenty of time to survey the reality they had looped into. **The Academy just started a couple of months ago, and your eighth birthday was only a couple of weeks back. Free me within the next month or so, and I'll migrate into Konoha with a merchant father from nowhere. With a little bit of testing and some manipulation I should be placed into your class.**

Kasumi just nodded. After several loops together, the Kyuubi had finally decided to throw (at the time) her lot in with Naruto Uzumaki and coexist peacefully for as long as they were stuck with this curse of forever living. A couple of lifetimes later, including her first time as a girl, Naruto had broken down from the thought of never dying and had sought the condolence of then-vixen, a creature who had lived for over five centuries, and had faint memories of the millennium-old Juubi.

That was the first life she had held a romantic and sexual relationship with the Kyuubi, and when she first set about to trying to figure out how to bypass the Shinigami-powered **Hakke Fuin** that held the Kyuubi in place on his/her body, and release the Kyuubi without killing either of them. A couple of lifetimes later, he had finally succeeded. To the disappointment of both, even that didn't stop the curse of immortality. As soon as one of them died, they would both be transported to a new reality. They should have seen it coming, though, given that Naruto had died on his fifth and sixth loops releasing the Kyuubi without trying to save himself, only to find that he would just be taken elsewhere.

**You're thinking again**, Kyuubi observed from her head.

Opening her eyes, heart fluttering at having her intense thoughts interrupted, Kasumi noted tears dripping from her eyes. "I am," She admitted. "I always hope I can get used to it, but every time..." More tears were leaking down, as her skin was turning red from the heat of the tears. "But Rei and the children are gone now, or at least what my Rei was like."

Rei had been the kunoichi that she as Naruto Uzumaki in the last dimension had dated and eventually married. Except for the Kyuubi, Kasumi had tried not to have a relationship more than once with a person. Perhaps it was odd to do such, but she found it liberating. It was always fun to see what made each girl (and boy, when Kasumi herself was female) she dated and married tick. Each person was their own separate individual, but as many events that had occurred in the past often stayed the same, formative events in one's personality often made that person only slightly deviate from life to life. Sakura, who Kasumi had married three times, including her very first lifetime, was always somewhat insecure and aggressive. Hinata, who she had married once in a world where she had never been kidnapped, wasn't as cripplingly shy as when she had been, but still maintained much of what had made Hinata of Kasumi's first world. After a while, going out with those two had been difficult, as Kasumi had to deal with both what was the same and what was different from the last time they were couples. Even though Rei was (likely) alive and going through the Academy as a ten-year-old, even if Kasumi was male, Rei's tomboyish attitude would be a painful reminder of what once had been, and the lack of her mellowed-out older years would only be a memory of what could be, but would never be the exact same.

**And the children are the hardest part of it, **Kyuubi added from her mind, picking up on her general thoughts.

Yes, her children. Of the few times she had married the same girl more than once as Naruto Uzumaki (or on one of those rare occasions, Hiruzen Uzumaki, named after the Sandaime Hokage who had sacrificed himself to seal the Kyuubi in that world), the children were never the same. In his first life with Sakura, Naruto had been the proud father of two sons and two daughters, all bearing his blonde hair and blue eyes. In his second life, it had been three daughters, who leaned more towards their mother. Neji had been wrong.

And of course, that meant Kasumi would never have the exact same child again, which was what hurt the most.

**And yet, you still have them**, Kyuubi noted.

"Yeah..." Kasumi whispered, wiping away her tears. She noted she was still nude, and went about hunting through her drawers for a fresh pair of panties and a bra for her nearly flat chest. "They always help take away almost all of the hurt, and they're always so wonderful to watch grow up. Besides...I still have you to help me remember, don't I?"

The nine-tailed fox gave a mental nod. Kyuubi was in some senses a force of nature and a cosmic entity. Kasumi still didn't understand everything there was about him, but Kyuubi was able to help her retain all of her memories from her past lives. Most of it was distant, but the demon lord prevented it from fading away. It hurt, but at least she would never forget them.

Finally, Kasumi hit paydirt as she found some nice, white panties, and put them on. Even nudity as a female no longer bothered her after so many lifetimes, but she still had the dignity that would prevent her from walking outside without any clothes. Putting on a bra as well, she walked over to a closet, and opened it up. Skirts, dresses, shirts and slacks by the dozen were displayed before her, each article of clothing designed to be loose-fitting for kunoichi wear. "So, fox, what name should I call you this time around, and what should I wear?"

The fox stirred. **"This time...call me Kaen.**" Kasumi snorted at the name he had used many times before. **"Hey, don't knock it. Plenty of the small villages in this country have boys named Kaen. As for the dress...pick that one."**

Kasumi looked at the red skirt Kaen had chosen out for her. "Nice choice, Kaen," She remarked, easily settling into calling the fox by his newly-chosen name. It was a rather odd relationship Kasumi held with the Kyuubi. While she still freed him from the seal most every lifetime, they did not always become a couple. They had come to that agreement long, long ago, as they realised that if the Curse held on for them, it would become boring after a while. It was only about every third lifetime they got together, with a humanised Kyuubi often making plans to come into Konoha and join Kasumi at the Ninja Academy so they could grow up together. She had just minutes ago affirmed to Kaen that this would be another lifetime for them to grow up together and love one another, so already she was setting up for their relationship, letting him choose what she would wear.

Quickly putting on the red dress, she walked back over to the mirror, twirling about to take a look at her. She was rather vain about her looks, but after over ten thousand years of living, it was a novelty that she liked to hold onto. "So, whatcha think, Kaen?"

A wolf-whistle came from Kaen. **Looking good, Kasumi-chan. I've come up with most of the important changes in this world's history by now. Do you want me to start chronologically or in order of importance?"**

"Order of importance," Kasumi said airily, picking up a brush as she went through her long hair. That first lifetime as a female, she had for the most part abstained from sex. She had had it a few times just to see what the experience was like, but had still been freaked out enough to not want to do anymore. During that three-string of female lives, she had finally gotten used to it. Fortunately, Kaen had been a male in the second life. That had been a rather odd life. She had a couple of lives Kaen the vixen getting pregnant off her own seed, but when she was the female and Kaen was male...

That was the first time she had gotten pregnant, and the first time she had felt the afterglow of motherhood. She had a new respect for all women after that who had to go through pregnancy and labour. Maybe a small part of her maleness remained behind from her first life, because most of the time when she was female and Kaen was male, they were a couple. She had only rarely experimented with going out with some of the other males in Konoha, like Kiba that one time (Hana, Kiba's sister, had remarked how appropriate it was for the two to be going out, given how animalistic both were in bed), Neji Hyuuga, and even Akasuna no Sasori in a really weird world where the puppeteer had stayed loyal to the Sand Village and kept his reproductive system intact even as he replaced most of the rest of his body.

Brushing aside her thoughts, Kasumi started to listen to Kaen, who started speaking, **Well, first of all, you have two younger twin brothers."**

The first time Kasumi had a sibling was a lifetime in which she spoiled her younger sister rotten. Many siblings had come and gone since then, but she would still be the best of friends as she could with her new brothers. "Names and personality?" She asked Kaen. While her counterpart's memories would assimilate with her in time, Kaen would forcibly assimilate them every time they changed worlds, and so he would inform them of what new things she had to watch out for in each world.

**Ken and Takato**, Kaen informed her, **Fraternal twins. Takato has dark blonde hair, darker than yours, and is fairly mischievous. Ken, who has more of an orange tint, is the more straight-laced of the two, though he still plays his share of pranks. Your counterpart scares them and is one of the few who can keep them in line.**

"Nice," Kasumi said. While she loved any sibling she had, there were far too many boring ones. Good to know she had a couple of prankster brothers. "What's next?"

**Sunagakure no Sato no longer exists.** Kaen revealed, giving Kasumi a few seconds as she sat down on her bed, startled by the news. **What details your and my counterpart learned are limited, but it seems that the sealing of the Ichibi into your friend Gaara was mismanaged, and the tanuki managed to run free, though he was chased away long enough for most of the civilians to evacuate.**

"Wow..." Kasumi said. She had seen several big changes between worlds, and the destruction of Suna was one of the biggest. "Any idea if Gaara's family survived, and if any refugees came to Konoha?"

**No idea about Gaara and his family, **Kaen admitted, **But it seems most of the population came to Konoha since the Leaf was the Sand's allies. Without a ninja village, the Wind Daimyo shifted most of his spending to Konoha, so your village is by far the strongest hidden village on the continent.**

"I'll have to read up on that when I get the chance," Kasumi admitted, her mind already trying to piece together how many things that often took place, such as Orochimaru's invasion during the Chunin Exams that Uchiha Sasuke participated in, would change as a result. "What's next?"

And so, Kaen continued to detail many differences that Kasumi knew would spice the experience of this lifetime up. Orochimaru of the Sannin was travelling the world to perform his research behind enemy lines, something that often happened when her father was alive, given his pragmatic views. The Inuzuka clan had had a population explosion in the last few years, with the clan looking to double in numbers in the next decade even after deaths knocked off some of their numbers. Sarutobi Asuma, after his father's death, had trained hard and was considered an S-Rank ninja in the bingo books of other nations. And those were just the changes Kaen could figure out from what scant little Kasumi's counterpart would have overheard or read before Kasumi took over her body. Given that she had only just turned eight, the Uchiha Massacre had not yet occurred, if it would occur.

After a while of listening to Kaen, Kasumi glanced at the clock, and noticed it was nearing nine a.m. Kaen had told her that one of her family's habits on weekends was to eat breakfast at nine, so she moved to head downstairs, where she would meet her parents once more for the first time in a few lifetimes, and meet two new brothers.

* * *

In the Namikaze household, there were a few commodities. Time was one of those. As the Hokage, Namikaze Minato had many functionary duties, and also had to keep his skills sharp at the same time. His wife, Uzumaki Namikaze Kushina, also had duties to perform as the Hokage's wife, and similarly needed to keep a good physique, all while raising three children. Similarly, they had pressured their daughter and two sons to train in shinobi techniques, even if they did not wish to become ninja themselves: as the Hokage's kids, they were prime targets for assassination or kidnapping, and being able to defend themselves was paramount. A Saturday morning like this, where all five were able to laze about and escape the bustle of the village, was a rarity, and husband and wife meant to take advantage of it.

Love was another commodity, although it was never in shortage. Minato and Kushina had had several misadventures during their younger days that had united them, and their marriage had never been in question. The events surrounding Kasumi's birth and their unexpected survival had tightened the bond even more, although Kushina still found herself idly fingering the seal on her body that had once contained the Kyuubi. The birth of her two sons had finished off a family that she swore would not be broken apart like her own was.

But the third commodity was quiet. It was something that Kushina could only find on those rare days she trained all three of her children at once, and drove them into the ground until they were so fatigued they could not work up the stamina to play pranks. And she had a sinking feeling that it was soon to be broken.

"Good morning, tou-san, kaa-san, 'ttebayo!" Came the piercing cry. There it went.

Kushina's eyebrow twitched. Of all the things her daughter looked up to her parents for and tried to imitate, that was one of the things she wished Kasumi had passed over. Honestly, just because she would randomly say 'Dattebane!'...

"Morning, Kasumi-chan," Minato managed to work up a weak grin from beside her, poking his head up above the newspaper he was perusing. "You had a good sleep, I hope."

"You bet I did, dattebayo!" Kasumi yelled, punching the air as she worked off excess energy for a few seconds, before taking a deep breath. Facing her parents, she asked, "Where are Ken-chan and Takato-chan? Not sleeping still, are they?"

"No, they're not," Kushina said, amused. She knew this of course because she could sense the two trying to stealthily approach the table. She had an inkling that Kasumi knew this as well, and was playing along for the twins' benefit.

"Good," Kasumi smiled the most mischievous smile Kushina had seen on her daughter's face since the night before, and warily got ready for an epic showdown between the midgets. "Because if they decided to do something like planting a tack on my chair again, I'd pound 'em!" To elaborate on her point, she punched a fist into the open palm of the other hand, creating a smacking sound.

There was a spike in chakra all three visible occupants of the dining area could sense as one of the twins got nervous. Kasumi spun around at the direction the brothers were in and pointed her index finger. "Aha! Come out you twerps, I caught you red-handed!"

Minato just folded his head, still having a hard time even after several years believing his daughter was more tomboyish than his wife had ever been.

Takato was the first to come out, his dirty blond hair drooping over his head, as he sniffled, crying fake tears. "Sniff...nee-chan is mean!" He wailed. Ken followed behind him, looking exasperated at his fraternal twin brother's antics.

"Oh, stop it," Kasumi retorted. While only a scant few memories had begun to assimilate themselves in with her vast life experience, behaviour was something that seemed to siphon off into her personality rather quick. A domineering attitude towards her brother when he got wild was one of those.

"Now, now, children, settle down," Kushina interjected, not wanting to let the conversation get out of hand. The last time they had done that, they had been repairing that room for three days. "If you don't, you'll be getting another training session from me this afternoon." Of course, an idle threat like that would also ensure compliance.

Faster than the redhead could blink, her two children were in their seats, with an intoned "We'll be good" echoing in the room. Her other son, Ken, just followed along, amusement showing on his face.

"Oh, you brats are finally here?" A black-haired face stuck out of the kitchen. Her usage of the derogatory term was obviously meant in good humor given her tone of voice. Kasumi blanked out at seeing the unfamiliar face, but quick analysis let her come to the conclusion this was probably a maid of sorts that her parents had hired on.

"Yes, we're all here, Yuki-san," Minato nodded. "What have you got for us today?"

Glad that her father had given the maid a name, Kasumi watched as the now-identified Yuki wheeled out a cart with scrambled eggs, milk, fried meat and pancakes. Were she to have been a civilian, having this sort of meal might be overkill were it an everyday occasion, but as a shinobi (well, now a kunoichi), foods high in protein and energy were essential. That her palette had expanded significantly over time from her once true-love of ramen was just icing on the proverbial cake. All she had to do now as to figure out how to get potatoes introduced from the Wind Country.

**Oh god, you still love potatoes, don't you?** Kaen queried from her mind. **Quick, gimme access to your sense of taste and smell. Gimmegimmegimme.**

Mentally smirking at how the bijuu in her head could be so childish about good food (he had picked up on an obsession with some type of food called bacon in one of their earlier loops when he had travelled overseas), Kasumi complied, all the while retaining a stoic face on the outside. While in this dimension, Kushina at least seemed to have trusted Kaen to some extent, it still wouldn't do for her parents to guess that she was talking to the Kyuubi. It was refreshing, however, that she was supposed to know about the Kyuubi: it was something her parents had told her about when she was five, and her brothers when they were six, and was an A-Class state secret that only jonins and other specific individuals were allowed to know. So much better than a few of the shitty worlds where all of Konoha's adults knew about it, much like her home world, and she herself wasn't supposed to know about Kyuubi.

* * *

"So, tou-san," Ken finally spoke up after the family was done eating, and Kasumi could tell from his smooth voice that he would be a charmer when he grew up, having seen it occur numerous times, "What are we doing today?"

"That's...a secret, heheheh," Minato sheepishly scratched his cheek as he had to listen to three separate cries of "Tou-san!" Teasing them for a few more seconds by abstaining from telling of his plans, he finally relented. "Alright, my old genin teammate Inuzuka Tsume is having a barbecue today, and she invited me and my other former teammate Akimichi Choza for a get-together. They both have kids and spouses, so you'll meet people around your own age. You should know Choza's kid from your class, Kasumi-chan," He added at the end.

"Yah!" Kasumi yelled out loud, even as her mind went into overdrive. Her father often changed genin teammates every time she changed lives. He had had repeat teams before, but this particular combination had never occurred. In her very first life, he had been paired up with two other orphans. One of them had sacrificed his life to save his ANBU team on a deep-strike mission into Iwagakure during the Third Great Shinobi War, while the other had gone on a long-term infiltration mission shortly after Minato had become the Yondaime, and had not finished until after the Fourth Great Shinobi War had passed. She was one of the last close friends of the Yondaime still living, and Kasumi, Naruto at the time, had made sure to talk to her extensively about her father.

She wrinkled her nose as she walked up to her room, intent on doing a quick makeover to her hair before leaving. Kasumi couldn't remember either of their names. She hated it when that happened. While she lived all the loops she was dumped into to the fullest that she could, she always tried to keep the memories of her first life fresh in her head. She would have to ask Kaen to refresh her memories later. For now, he was asleep, somehow having gotten drowsy from the large breakfast. It was just another side effect of the psychic bond neither had really bothered to try and understand.

* * *

Kasumi had once heard a poem somewhere, about the want of a nail. She couldn't recite it word for word, but she knew the general meaning behind it: the smallest circumstance could snowball into being vital. Had that not proved true in her first life? As Uzumaki Naruto the first, she had offered a few words to Sabaku no Gaara after beating him down during the Invasion of Konohagakure by the Snake Sannin, Orochimaru. Those few words stuck with Gaara and was what ultimately helped him to become the Kazekage of his village.

But the want of a nail also applied retroactively. In some sense, Neji had been right. Kasumi would have rubbed it into his face, but it just wouldn't have been the same.

Always, the world she traveled to would differ in some way. Sometimes, it was minor, with events only changing between a few months before she was born and afterwards. In those lives, most of the people she had known from her first life were around still, such as the Rookie Nine. However, if even one thing was different at least two years before she was born, most of those people were gone. Neji would never have been born in a world where his father decided to work a little bit later on the night Neji was supposed to be conceived. Instead, Hizashi Hyuuga would have a newborn daughter in ten months, not a newborn son in nine. Such a small change would result from something different happening in the past.

"Hiya Kasumi-chan?" The orange-haired girl opposite her greeted, before tossing up one of the apples she had in her hands. "Want an apple?"

"Sure, Cho-chan!" Kasumi greeted back, accepting the green-skinned apple with a curt thank you. Cho wasn't Choji, but from the few memories she had already begun to receive, she was close in personality - slightly shy, not really outgoing, and already full of weight anxieties. Kasumi could already see one of the friends she would make in this world, not that it wasn't hard – the counterpart whose body she had taken over was already friends with the orange-haired maiden, who was in the same class as Kasumi was at the Academy.

If anything changed two years before she was born, anybody conceived after that time would not exist in that dimension. Even still, she sometimes met them again in a few dimensions. What really hurt, however, was never being able to see the younger children again, such as Konohamaru and his two friends Moegi and Udon, Inari from Wave, Hanabi Hyuuga, or Sarutobi Asuma the Second. It was the same kind of hurt she felt every time she lost her children, whether as they died or as she died and went to a new world.

But what was really disturbing was when she applied that sort of thinking to herself. She, Uzumaki Kasumi, was very rarely the same. Almost always, something was different between her and her last counterpart. Only a single loop out of over a hundred and fifty lives where neither Uzumaki Kushina or Namikaze Minato were her parents, had helped her in figuring out this curse of looping: in that lifetime, even still, she had been the vessel chosen for the Kyuubi to be sealed into.

"Hey, Cho-chan!" A new voice shouted out. "Who's your friend?"

Broken out of her thoughts, Kasumi turned to face the new speaker. Even if Inuzuka Kiba didn't exist in this world, Tsume's firstborn this time around resembled him deeply in both personality and looks: rough around the edges, a sweetheart on the inside. This boy, also named Kiba (it seemed parents really did know what they wanted to name their children long before the actual day came! Her own parents were an exception when it came to her female lives, however), hadn't actually shown any of the 'sweetheart' tendencies, but Kasumi had long learned how to read the personalities of others.

"Ah, Kiba-kun," Cho gave a short wave as Kiba walked in closer. "This is Kasumi-chan, from my class. I've spoken to you about her before, haven't I?"

"Yeah," the brown-haired boy admitted, feral marks on his face dancing with the creasing of his facial muscles, "You have." He turned to Kasumi and looked her from top to bottom once before whistling. "You'll break a lot of hearts when you're older, Kasumi-san." He snorted audibly. "Don't take offense, but be glad you're three years younger than I am, or else mom and your dad would probably be match-making to try and 'match their children' together or something." He groaned as he rubbed his forehead.

Many things changed for the want of a nail. Kasumi had seen it too many times to be ignorant. This Kiba, who was what the Kiba of her first life was like after being shined through a refractive crystal, was one such example, being born three years before she was, when the eldest sibling in her first life was older than her by five years. It seemed that Tsume had recently had two more children, given the pair of adorable twin girls riding around on Kuromaru, Tsume's long-time ninken partner.

"If my father tried to set me up like that..." Kasumi paused for dramatic effect, before pounding her fist into her open palm, "I'd destroy him." She bared her teeth for maximum theatrics.

Both Cho and Kiba laughed for a few seconds at the display, before Kiba sighed, looking at the six adults chatting, the orange-haired heavyset man occasionally working his art on the barbecue. "Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to do it with your brothers and my sisters." He wryly noted.

"In that case, I'd like to see them be ready for the consequences," Kasumi drawled. "Ken might go along, but Takato would make their lives hell if he felt like he was being forced into it."

"A prankster, is he?" Kiba guessed, and shook his fist in victory as Kasumi confirmed it with a nod. "He would fit right along with my one sister Hana." He just shook his head, amused. "Shia is often kept on her toes trying to keep Hana from her more oddball habits."

"Sounds a bit like Ken, he's the one who helps us keep Takato straight at times." Kasumi looked over to Cho, thinking she should bring the shy girl into the conversation. "What about you Cho, any siblings?" She motioned for the other two to follow her as she laid on the grass, torso upright, letting her bare toes walk through the dewy grass.

"Ah...no, Kasumi-chan. I...I asked my parents once about it...my mother apparently is unable to have any more children," Cho looked down for a moment, before brightening up. "It's alright though, I have several cousins my age that I can still play with, and you're still my friend, aren't you Kasumi-chan?" She sounded nervous and fretful, hugging her legs to her body.

Kasumi's heart went out for the 'big-boned' girl. She definitely knew who she was working on helping in this life as Kasumi Namikaze. "Of course I am, Cho! Just because you think you're not pretty doesn't mean I don't! You just need a bit of self-confidence is all! And besides," She thumbed Kiba, eliciting a mocking yelp of pain from the boy, "Kiba here is still your friend, right?"

A little bit of the playboy that Kasumi had known from the original Kiba showed in this Inuzuka clan heir as he bared his teeth. "You bet, Cho-chan!"

It was with pride that the six parents watched their seven children and pair of ninken interact before calling them over for lunch.

* * *

**So, have you decided what you're going to do in this world?** Kaen asked from her head, several hours later, after the family had gotten back to the house and Kasumi had made it to her room to go to sleep for the night.

Kasumi was twirling around, admiring her body in her mirror. She had seen her female selves grow up enough times that she had a good idea of what she would look like when she was older, and damn would she be smoking hot. Some part of her maleness was still lingering from the last world at that thought, but it was quickly fading away with the lack of hormones to influence her mind. In only a few days, she would have lost all sexual drive, and it would stay that way for the next few years.

"Hmmm..." She hummed, her humming a signal she was still thinking. Stripping down again, she looked over the very vague contours and curves of her body, a precursor of what would be in the years to come. "Damnit, I have to go through puberty again. At least you'll have to share in my misery again this time 'round." If there was one thing she liked and hated, it was having to go through puberty again, and again, and again...she had long looked for ways to bypass that whole developmental period, but short of turning into an Orochimaru for a few loops, had fallen short in that goal.

**Puberty equals larger breasts, larger breasts equals nice pillowy goodness**, the kitsune deadpanned. **For that I'm more than willing to go through that hell again, and hormones.** There was the sensation of a cold shiver.

She flushed. Even after thousands of years spent in awkward sexual relationships with her tenant, he still knew how to get her embarrassed. "Ah, ero-kitsune," She squealed at his insinuations, before shutting the lights off and climbing into her bed, hugging her pillow. "It's obvious you've made the change quickly."

**And you won't be hot and horny like a vixen in heat in five or seven years' time?** He continued teasing her.

"Yeah..." She sighed. "And then you'll be going into a frenzy again when I deliver you more 'kits', and honestly I never got why you still stick to using fox-specific terms even when you're a human."

**Bah**, the Kyuubi snorted. **You may have changed me for the better, but I'm still a fox, even if I spend more time as a human than anything else.**

"Well then, maybe you should turn into a foxboy again when we get old enough, and I'll be a foxgirl," Kasumi teased him back for the first time in the conversation. "I remember the last time we did that for a whole lifetime. Is that kinky enough for you?"

Lust permeated the psychic bond the two shared, and for a moment she was nearly swept up in it. Cursing and blessing her lack of hormones at the same time for not being overwhelmed by it, she sprawled herself out underneath her blankets. Of course, had she been male and Kaen been female this time around and the vixen suggested it, Kasumi knew she would have responded with as much lust, so she wasn't disturbed by it. It was all situational playfulness evolved from thousands of years of companionship romance.

Besides, they had been the same genders they were now the last time they tried it, and he had been so good with his tails, and...and damn she was heating up already, her face was flush. She pushed it out of her mind, and turning around to lie on her back. What did she want to do in this world? She didn't know. Many were the times she had become Hokage, others were the times she had stuck to jobs that let her adventure out into the field. She didn't always become a ninja or kunoichi, either. As long as it involved either action or exploration, she was game for it. Maybe another lifetime of travelling was up for grabs? The last time she had done it, her and the Kyuubi-vixen of the time had gone up to the far north to visit the glacial icelands found at the end of the world.

"Goodnight, Kaen. I'll give you an answer in the morning." A mental nod was her response, as she quickly fell asleep, with one last muttered prayer to the memory of her children and wife from the previous loop.

* * *

Three nights later, one brown-haired kunoichi-in-training would wake up with a gasp.

Looking around, she surveyed her spartan room, and was startled to notice that her window was open. So her instincts weren't mistaken – somebody had intruded on her. For what purpose? Scenarios flitted through her mind, several of which she didn't wish to consider.

An observant eye picked out another off detail. Looking at her desk, she saw a scroll laying there that she knew wasn't there before. Turning on the lamp next to the desk, she sat down in her chair, and played a mental game against herself over whether to open it or not. Finally, the brunette rationalised to herself that whoever had broken in wouldn't be laying a trap against her with this scroll – the mysterious figure would have just kidnapped or otherwise harmed her if he or she truly wished. With great trepidation, she opened the scroll.

It was with great wonder that she found neat handwriting detailing the workings behind several minor genjutsu, and how she could create her own. The Academy never went into this much detail! She didn't know who her mysterious benefactor was, or how he or she knew of her own desire to train in genjutsu (she had confessed it to nobody!), but she was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Many small actions can lead to large changes. Akisawa Rei would otherwise have become a career chunin mulling about in a dead-end life with border patrols, but for a single midnight gift that would allow her to become a genjutsu mistress, rivalling the talent of Kurenai Yuuhi.

* * *

**Hmm, if that's a bit squick for any of you readers with a formerly male Naruto suddenly transitioning to a female Naruto and getting over it in like an hour, I apologise. But that's mainly how this fic go down. For the most part, I did try to make it work.**

**As you should probably have figured out by now going off this first chapter, Naruto and Kyuubi are both looping back in time after their deaths (or after one of them dies, anyways, if Kyuubi is unsealed). They don't get sent back to the start of canon timeline, either: every time they loop, they get sent to a world where things are different. Kyuubi is heavily humanised in this fic, and that'll get some development over the next few chapters. Part of it is simple realisation that he can't exist without having Naruto around and alive, so he might as well do whatever. He'll probably have raged and destroyed after a few loops, only to finally find that it gets boring. A lot of loops he won't stick around either, and will run off elsewhere, intent on exploring the world. A couple of you reviewers will probably point out that Kyuubi is just a mass of chakra, and shouldn't have a gender. To that I say eh, I'll either figure a way out to bullshit past that or just consider it a change to canon rules.**

**Of course, there will be changes to this world from canon, with the obvious ones being some genderswaps, and Kasumi's family. All the other stuff is simply borne out of my desire to not be another of those thousand and one writers who basically rewrite canon except make Naruto more powerful/intelligent than his canon counterpart.**

**Now, I wouldn't really view this as a Naruto/Kyuubi romance, but rather more of a companionship with smut. They've gone through romance already, they're something closer than lovers in a sense, borne out of being together for so long through so many loops. The sex at this point is for just reconnecting and for base pleasures, while whoever's a female at the time will have some children, as watching their children grow will be one of the few joys that never gets old for them. Like I said before, this is a fairly humanised Kyuubi, too. I think what you'll most likely find them as is extremely playful companions. They go along with whatever gender the loop has given them, so they've known each other as maleNaruto x femaleKyuubi, and femaleNaruto x maleKyuubi, and dare I say it, maybe even an occasional femaleNaruto x femaleKyuubi? But yeah, that's why femaleNaruto has so easily adapted into being Namikaze Kasumi, and Kyuubi into Kaen, a male with future problems with lust.**

**In any case, this chapter was honestly something I wrote over a couple of days with the initial idea springing to me only a few hours before the first word was written. I don't even know if I'll make this story just for one loop only, or if there'll be multiple loops. I get odd strokes of genius at times, so for all you know this loop might be for this chapter only with an info dump and next chapter will be something new entirely. In any case, the general direction I'll go with this fic will be more serious than your standard crackish loopfix, perhaps a bit deconstructionist even. Somewhat like All is Relative Except for the Stubbornness of a Demon, but different in tone. The overarching theme of this story, however, will be Naruto/Kasumi and Kyuubi trying to figure out what caused the loops, how to stop it if possible, how the looping has changed them over time, and most importantly, if they wish to stop it.**


	2. Chapter 2

A kunai was known as the multi-purpose tool of the battlefield. It could be used to kill and maim enemy ninjas or as a distraction leading into another technique, to gut hunted animals or fish, cut through the paper-thin walls of houses some people lived in, and were usually strong enough to block a strike from a sword without breaking. Specially constructed kunai also had other purposes, such as the ones whose blunt ends were built to be capable of using as a shovel and an axe, or chakra-absorbant kunai used by wind specialists to be thrown and retrieved thereafter.

Kasumi had found over the loops that its best unadvertised purpose was to pick at ones nails to clean out the dirt that got caught up in them.

"Um, Kasumi-chan, I don't think you're supposed to use your kunai like that," Cho stated, as Kasumi looked over at the orange-haired girl.

Bless her heart, but the girl was a worrywart. Well, not really, the blonde reminded herself. Cho was just displaying the natural reaction most would to such an action (a bit more politely than most would, actually!). If somebody wasn't careful, he could end up cutting the skin at the end of his finger, right under the nail. From experience, Kasumi knew that it hurt. But she had desensitised herself to pain enough that she no longer feared it, not to mention she had done it so often that she never cut herself with kunai anymore. Death was an entirely different matter – she was a freak in that regards. Others feared death because they faced utter oblivion when they passed away. She feared death because it hurt to be torn away from the friends and family she had made in that current reality.

"Now, now, Cho-chan, I don't think Kasumi-chan really cares," Said a girl with dark-blue hair bordering on black, who was sitting on a log bench nearby, devouring down a sandwich.

Kasumi just snorted, "Darn right I don't, Kara-chan." She turned to look at the third member of the trio of girly cohorts. Uchiha Kara was the third-born daughter of Uchiha Fugaku (who must surely have been glad when he finally got his male heir on the fourth try) and Uchiha Mikoto. It had taken little effort to induct her into the friendship she and Cho shared – Kara after all had a very bubbly personality. Which was good, as Kasumi often used the personality of the Uchiha she met as an indicator of whether or not there would be an Uchiha Massacre or something close in that timeline. Given Kara's bright and cheerful outlook, Kasumi doubted there would be a Massacre this time around. She had yet to meet Kara's eldest sister, who was a jonin. If she was a total contrast to what Uchiha Itachi had been, Kasumi would be highly amused.

"Don't be mean either!" Kara scolded her, as she rested her hands on the grass behind her, sprawling herself over the log. The three sat there for a few minutes, continuing to do what they were doing since the start of their lunch break – Kasumi picking at her nails with a kunai, Cho going through several pieces of fruit, and Kara trying to soak in the sun on as much surface area of her body as possible. Suddenly, Kara snapped her torso up from her laying down position, and spoke excitedly. "Hey, aren't we supposed to get new students in today?"

"Yes," Kasumi affirmed. It was the halfway point through the year. What she and Kara and Cho were in was considered the first of two optional years for the Academy Students; only the last two years were mandatory to take and graduate with, but most opted to go for a full four years to better prepare themselves (and have a better chance to pass the graduation exam). Over the next two years, a few students would drift in at the beginning of every semester, one occasion of which would be today. "We do, tou-san mentioned it earlier to me this morning. Three new students in our class, he said."

"Oh?" Cho asked as she took a bite out of an apple. "Did he say anything about what they were like or any names, or just said three people?"

"Just three people," Kasumi confirmed, though she was fairly confident about who one of them would be.

After all, it was his fault she had been weak as a kitten for a week, an effect of the unsealing in every loop.

"Hah, maybe it'll be some new hot boy," Kara dreamily said, pushing her cheeks up as she started lapsing out of reality. "Then everyone will ditch Saki-kun and he'll be all mine, muwahaha!"

Kasumi's only appropriate response was to sweatdrop. She had met some eccentric Uchiha, but this Uchiha Kara was like a less-shy version of Hyuuga Hinata. And she occasionally had dreams of world domination (something Kasumi had tried once, only to pass on doing it again as being the Emperor of the World took a lot of paperwork), too.

"Neh, Kara-chan," Kasumi said after a while, "Why don't you just talk to Saki-kun? It's better than obsessing with him."

"Kasumiiiii!" Kara cried out, her cheeks turning flush red with embarrassment, and both Kasumi and Cho laughed at her predicament. Alright, maybe Kara was more outgoing, but she still had the same problem with talking to her crush that Hinata had.

The conversation would have gone on further, but the bell rang, indicating the end of the lunch hour. As Kasumi smoothed her dress out and started walking back to class, she let her thoughts wander again.

At times, she felt the despair of having lived for over ten thousand years crush on her. She wasn't sure how old exactly she was, just relative terms, having kept track of how many loops she was in, but it was still fairly old. She had once run into a philosopher Orochimaru who had succeeded in his search for immortality. He had been one of only a handful of people who she had ever told about being in an endless loop of lives. He had explained an old argument to her: that creatures who were 'born' immortal were biologically equipped to deal with the mental effects of living forever, but those who 'achieved' immortality would grow weary of life.

The Snake Sannin of that age was unable to reproduce the results of the one thing Kasumi desperately desired – he had somehow managed to alter his very state of 'mind' and biologically change his brain so that he would not grow depressed after long centuries of living. He had given her some of the theory behind it, but neither of them had been able to make any headway. To Kasumi's frustration, she had never since encountered another world where Orochimaru had done something of the same ilk, and so her hunt continued for a way to either battle the occasional depression she fell into, or for a way to finally die.

But now, she was in an upbeat arc of loops, and it would hopefully stay that way for a few hundred years. Growing up with a family, meeting two exuberant girls who she truly and genuinely liked as friends, and having an arc with some exciting changes would keep her happy. Some of her happiest memories from her long lives were of prepubescent days like this, where she could truly be innocent without having to worry. Once, the first time she had looped, she had assumed she had travelled back in time, and had worked hard and long to try and stop all the atrocities that had occurred in her first life. She had had no childhood in that life. After she had finally broken down the first time, she had decided that unless the world she was in was in really bad shape, she would always try to have a nice childhood before leaving her mark on the planet's history.

One of the most interesting differences she had already seen in this loop was her classes. Because of the destruction of the Sand Village, most of the survivors had come to Konoha. It was hardly a smooth integration, but the Academy had benefited. With many students coming from a culture that had to be physically tough enough to survive in the desert, taijutsu lessons were far more intense and useful than they had been in most other worlds. In the last year of school, students would also be taught more than just the Basic Three Ninjutsu of **Kawarimi, Henge** and **Bunshin**, a leftover from how things were done at the Suna Academy. And amusingly enough, for people who had once raised many wind users, there was a great admiration for Sarutobi Asuma, S-Class ninja and prominent Futon ninjutsu specialist. Truly, it was already less boring than usual (though still boring).

Bah, she was thinking too hard again. This world seemed peaceful enough, and it would hopefully stay that way without a particularly ugly Akatsuki variation rearing its head. She would let the flow of the years pass her by for a while.

* * *

Once upon a time...he had been dreaming.

It was a long dream, preceded by a single moment of pure, white pain, before one day, he obtained sentience. A mere fox kit at the time, his physical form had been extinguished as the greatest fraction of the Jubi's power entered his body, giving him intelligence. Chaotic power and instinct-driven intelligence warred as he had turned into a mass of chakra. At times, the intelligence had won out, and he was at peace for several years. But power that was not originally his own was hard to control, and he would often go on a rampage.

One day, he found a man with spinning red eyes, who spoke to him. He was unable to control his body as it followed the black-haired man's commands, and he was brought to a valley, where he was made to attack another man, this one able to control trees. A single ball of energy launched from his gaping maw had struck down the side of the valley, turning it more properly into a canyon. However, the wooden man had captured him, binding him down with his trees, and sealed him into his first host.

Life sealed in Uzumaki Mito was peaceful. For the first time, his bloodlust had been washed away. However, it was also boring, and he found himself hibernating for a half-century, until one day, he found himself in a new host. Uzumaki Kushina was full of spunk, and he amused himself with what few daily interactions he was able to view through her eyes. She had tried to talk to him on several occasions. Most of the time he rejected her attempts at conversation, but twice he chatted back with her.

And then there was Uzumaki Naruto.

Any attempts he had made at understanding human psychology had to go out the window at that. Uzumaki Naruto was simply an enigma that he could not decipher, and the person he shared loops with was even harder to figure out. Despite the incompetence at everyone around him at raising him, greatly stunting his growth in the process, Naruto had persevered and become the strongest shinobi in the world by the time he was eighteen, defeating the likes of a man with a god complex and the doujutsu of the Rikudo Sennin, and an immortal century-old man whose bloodline had manifested to broken levels.

Four times, he had battled Naruto in a clash of wills, as unlike before, he had grown bored of napping, and wanted out again. The first two times, when the young genin had fought Jiraiya of the Sannin in training and then attempting to kill Orochimaru of the Sannin, Naruto had used four tails of his own chakra. Kyuubi did not let that pass, and managed to wrestle control away both times, until a demonic suppression tag had been attached, causing him to have to forfeit control.

The third time, on the _Shimagame_, the Island Turtle located in the waters of Lightning Country, Naruto had set him free from his cage. Kyuubi, who had grown frustrated after being sealed for the third time and desperately wanted out, had put his all into the fight, but had lost against a combined force of Kushina's soul imprint and Naruto.

He still had not let Naruto use his power willingly, causing havoc at every turn, which caused Naruto to finally face him for a fourth and final time, shortly after he entered the fray of the chaotic Fourth Great Shinobi War and needed to use the Kyuubi's power to supplement his own chakra reserves. That time he had outright defeated the nine-tails, forcing him to submit and give up his chakra. With nearly unlimited chakra, he did what seemed the impossible: he fought for seven days and seven nights without sleep, killing every single zombie and clone on the field, all the while dodging black Amaterasu fire cast by Uchiha Madara.

To see a boy become a man like that was amazing, and it bolstered what little opinion he had had of the human race. Most of them were still trash...but they had the potential to become great, like Uzumaki Naruto had. He could see how it was that Namikaze Minato was able to fend him off for over an hour before finally calling down the Shinigami.

He had decided to die with Uzumaki Naruto, and had accepted death when it came...only for Naruto to wake up in a slightly different body in a slightly different reality. The first loop, they had both assumed it was time travel, and Naruto had set about to preventing disastrous circumstances as best he could, such as the deaths of the old monkey and the toad summoner. But when the third time around brought a far different world, they finally understood that they were looping into different dimensions, where minor changes in the past snowballed into big changes in the present.

Sometimes he wondered about that. For whatever reason, even though his gender was something that had been decided over five hundred years ago when his vixen mother had given birth to a litter of kits, it never seemed to really have that 'butterfly effect', as he had once heard causality be described as, on the way history played out. It would not be until about twenty years before when his 'attack on Konoha' before changes in the genders of the bijuu (which they retained in their mentality even as they were transformed into masses of chakra) appeared to affect anything, which was coincidentally the cut-off point for over ninety percent of loops for anything to noticeably change. Only a few loops had ever had _any_ differences occur more than thirty years before the present day. That was when the Sandaime Raikage of Kumogakure managed to seal the Hachibi no Kyogyu into Killer Bee, the rapping jonin that often infuriated him whenever he met the man with his terrible rhyming. The rapper was the first man to be able to reach a cordial relationship with his bijuu, and in those loops where the Hachibi was a female, Bee mellowed out ever so slightly. The same would go for Yagura of Kirigakure, and Roshi of Iwagakure, containers to the Sanbi and Yonbi respectively.

The door opened, and the teacher, a scar-faced chunin he vaguely remembered was named Umino Iruka, motioned him and the two other new students standing next to him to come in. Walking inside, he listened as Iruka introduced the other two students and sent them off into empty seats, before turning to him.

"And this is Kazawa Kaen," Iruka introduced the red-haired boy to the class. "He hails from the northern end of Fire Country. Kaen-san, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself."

Dark grey-green eyes faced the class, dazzling those who looked straight at him. With a strong voice, he spoke, "Sure, Umino-sensei. My father was a merchant, but he decided to settle down here in Konoha to open a shop. He doesn't mind me not following in the family business, so here I am. I like to travel and see other places." That was that. He didn't want to be seen as cool. He had seen what fangirls were like!

Iruka absently-mindedly said, "You can call me Iruka-sensei, I don't mind," before scanning the room. "Let's see, where should I put you...ah, Kasumi, could you please raise your hand?"

A blonde girl raised her hand from the middle row, with an empty seat to her left. Iruka motioned at the empty seat, and spoke to Kaen, "Go sit next to Namikaze-san, please. That will be your assigned seat for the year."

"Yes, Iruka-sensei," Kaen responded, smiling. It wasn't directed at Iruka, but rather to himself. He had 'nudged' the chunin with a very specialised form of killing intent, making the spiky-haired teacher dislike the notion of choosing any seat other than the one that was next to Kasumi. Walking over with a handful of supplies Iruka handed to him, he sat himself down, before quietly speaking to the blonde, "Hi, I'm Kaen."

Kasumi looked over at him. "Nice ta meet ya, Kaen-san. I'm Kasumi." She gave him a bright smile that he positively adored.

He smirked. Hormones and sitting through this academy thing again would suck, but it would have its payoff in the end.

* * *

With carefully timed precision, Kasumi entered the ramen shop without disturbing the fabric tent that kept most of the sunlight from penetrating the interior of the stand. Inside were over two dozen customers sitting on the stools, with a couple more sitting at one of the few tables in the establishment. Finding herself a spot, the brown-haired waitress quickly rushed over to her, the girl wiping off a streak of sweat from her forehead.

"Ah, Kasumi-chan?" Ayame, daughter of the stand owner, had a good memory for faces and names given the hundreds of customers Ichiraku entertained. Of course, given who Kasumi was, it was rather easy to remember her. "No Cho-chan or Kara-chan with you today?"

"Nah, not today," Kasumi shook her head. "They both 'ad family business that they had to go home for." Pausing to take a deep whiff of the air, she basked in the aromatic scent of cooking ramen, the smell of the various toppings that were added to the glorious noodles (miso, chicken, beef, shrimp, vegetables, and of course, naruto), and even the musky odor of the hundreds who had visited that day already. She had grown to appreciate food, but ramen was still one of her true loves. Settling in her seat, she finally went ahead with her order. "Can I get an extra large order of the chicken with extra chicken please, Ayame-chan?" She brought out a pair of ryo notes that added together would be sufficient for the meal plus tip.

Ayame took the bills, and thumbed them for a couple of seconds, making sure they weren't counterfeit, before deciding they were legitimate. "I'll have your order ready in a few minutes for you, Kasumi-chan," The fair-skinned girl flashed Kasumi a bright smile before running off.

Knowing that a few minutes meant around ten given the busy nature of the ramen stand at the moment, Kasumi let her mind idle, as she tapped her fingers on the wooden bar. Beside her, a boy a few years older than her left, another waiter picking up his bowl and cleaning the vicinity. It was nice coming here to wind down from long, mostly boring days at the Academy (after the first hundred times around, even Suna-influenced adjustments still didn't stop it from getting old). In some loops, Ichiraku never opened, or it would go bust, particularly during the Third Great Shinobi War, when Iwagakure shinobi attempted to disrupt supply trains to Konoha, including the wheat shipments from Rice Country that Ichiraku used.

A person slid into the seat next to her that had been left vacant only a few minutes earlier. Seeing a flash of red, she turned her head, and was rewarded with the sight of a slightly moody eight-year-old Kaen.

"Hey, Kaen?" She spoke out loud, and caught the attention of the Reynard bijuu in human form. "What a coincidence seeing you here. You come to get some ramen as well?"

"Hmmm...ah, you're Kasumi, right?" He asked. "Well, I guess I should know you, I sit right next to you in class now." Leaning in, he whispered, "Is your friend Kara-chan always, ah, so..."

"Weird?" Kasumi filled in the blank. "Yeah, but I wouldn't have her any other way." Girly people like Kara was what helped reconnect Kasumi with her inner feminity, after all.

"Uh-huh," Kaen intoned. "Speaking of classmates, Iruka-sensei said your last name was Namikaze. Are you related to-"

"The Yondaime? Yeah, he's my dad." She grimaced at that. She could detect the two ANBU who were currently keeping an eye on from a rooftop across the street using special equipment to see past the tent fabric and eavesdrop on her conversation. No doubt they would be filling in the file made up on Kaen when he first entered the village (and staging a conversation like this for the benefit of the profilers was always fun). She understood her father's need for security, considering he didn't know she was a dimensional hopper who was older than any other human being's life _squared_ and had the skills to match it up (even without body conditioning), but damn if it didn't feel overbearing sometimes. "I would prefer if you don't get all preferential treatment and everything over that, though. I don't like it when they do that."

Kaen chuckled, "Ah, but it has to be expected, doesn't it? You probably get expectations as well and duties to follow, but," He shrugged his shoulders, "Look at the flip side. With responsibilities you also get privileges." This he said as he started smoothing out the mane of red hair that went down to his shoulders.

"True enough," Kasumi grumbled, "But I still don't have to like it." She let out a dazzling smile, "But enough of that. You never answered my question, you came to get ramen I assume?"

"Hmm, I guess," He answered, "But I came here to do something else as well."

Kasumi was about to ask what, when Ayame finally came back with her order, complete with chopsticks. "One extra-large chicken with extra chicken for you Kasumi-chan." She turned to face Kaen. "Has someone stopped by yet to serve you, sir?"

Kaen looked sheepish for a moment, "Um, actually, do you know if the owner of the stand is around?"

Ayame narrowed her eyes, "He is, but he's busy at the moment. I'm his daughter, however. Did you need something?"

The redhead mumbled for a few seconds, "His daughter, that should do..." Before pulling out a card, and handing it to Ayame.

"Oh?" Ayame asked, before turning the card around. She glanced at the card, before looking up. "This is an invitation over to the yakiniku that's being retrofitted into the stand across the street?"

"Yes," Kaen nodded. "My father was a cattle merchant, but he decided to settle down here in Konoha and open something meat-related, and decided on a barbecue place. Uh, he wanted to invite all the owners of the stands around here in a couple of nights for dinner so he could get to know them." As an afterthought, he added, "Along with their families.

The long-haired brunette pursed her lips. A yakiniku wouldn't strictly be competition with them, since a ramen place was hardly the same as a barbecue, but they still both served food. But it would be interesting to see, given that Konoha only had a few yakiniku for its size and the presence of the Akimichi clan. Pocketing the invitation in her robes, she spoke up again, "I'll hand it to my father in a bit when he gets some free time. We should be able to come, but I can't make an absolute guarantee. But enough of that, did you want to order some ramen?"

"Uh..." Kaen trailed off for a few seconds, before looking over at Kasumi's bowl that the blonde was devouring at a fast pace. "I'll have what she's having." Ayame quoted a rate for the bowl, extra chicken included, and he handed over the appropriate amount before the ramen waitress walked off again.

Mouth full of brothy noodles, having given a quick 'Itadakimasu' earlier, Kasumi smirked. _Bet you wish they served inarizushi here, eh?_

Kaen kept his composure as he waited for the girl to finish chewing and swallowing, but mentally sent back a strong retort. **Oh, for the last time, just because I'm a fox doesn't mean I like inarizushi!**

_Whatever ya say, Kaen,_ she sent a giggle at _was_ fun to try and fluster him in a public setting like this. She never got to do this when she was a guy.

After Kasumi finished off her current bite, she spoke up again, "I didn't realise your father was actually opening up a yakiniku here." It was rather amusing to see some of the ways that Kaen would come into Konoha many loops and integrate himself into the village, often ending after many years with one jumping the other's bones. It was a shame he had yet to top the time that the vixen of that world came into Konoha as a priestess of a sex goddess.

Now _that_ loop had been a riot. She still had no idea how he had forged enough aphrodisiac to poison Amegakure's water supplies, but it cracked her up every time she thought about it in a private setting.

"Yep," Kaen responded, before leaning in close and dropping his voice to a high whisper. "It's not really a secret or anything since we'll be opening in a week, but otou-san and me travelled to the Westlands for a year-"

"Oooooh, the Westlands?" Kasumi suddenly gushed out excitedly. "What was that like?"

"The Westlands?..." Kaen leaned back in his stool against its back, "It's a different place than the Elemental Nations. They never had the whole hidden villages thing going on, so you still have lots of rogue bands of chakra users wandering around." He whirled back to face Kasumi, "But anyways, they have some animals there that aren't native to the Elemental Nations. Tou-san imported some of them and brought them to his brother, my uncle, good old ji-san, to raise for him to sell. There's this one particular animal called a hog." He was practically salivating at the mouth now, and Kasumi groaned as she realised where this was going to lead into. "Hogs are built bit differently than cows, and one delicacy that the Westlands make from hogs is called bacon. They're basically little strips of meat that taste really delicious when they're grilled or fried. Another one is pork, which can be barbecued."

And there it came back to. Bacon. Again with that damned bacon. She had tried bacon several times before. While she could see the appeal, she just did not understand his damned fascination with it (it was nothing like her once-obsession with ramen, dattebayo!).

A shudder passed through her as an earlier thought merged with her current thoughts. If Kaen ever came up with the idea of becoming a Priest of the Almighty Lord of Bacon, she would threaten to kill herself and end that loop early.

"That's interesting," Kasumi said, forcing her words now, before deciding to change the subject. "But why Konoha?"

"Otou-san figured it was a stable enough place, what with all the ninja stationed here," Kaen said, leaning forward to lean his head on his hands on the bar. "Then I guess he wanted me to know how to protect myself, and overreacted and sent me to the ninja academy here." He chuckled. "Don't ask me how his mind works like that."

"Riiiight," She replied, slurping up some more noodles, and watched as another bowl was set down in front of the boy, who took a sniff and poked at it with his chopsticks with it, before taking an experimental chew and swallow.

"This is really good," He noted, before looking at all the rest of the customers in the establishment. "I can see why this place attracts so much business."

"Yep," She said, before looking at her bowl. Depressingly, she was beginning to see the bottom of it. "Some of the higher-up shinobi have been eating here since they were genin, so it got a boost when people saw the new Hokage was eating here."

Wisely, he didn't respond to that, and continued eating, making headway into the large bowl. As Kasumi finished off her own bowl of ramen, she waited for him to finish. With common etiquette drilled into her head, she spoke to the other ninja-in-training, "I'll see you at school tomorrow then, Kaen-kun."

Recognising the tease for what it was, he hopped off his stool, "You too, Kasumi-chan." With their conversation concluded, the two started to leave out the tent, both quite well aware of a pair of ANBU guards changing out with a new pair.

* * *

"Hmmm, I see," Minato said as he took of his reading glasses. "Both the boy and his father's files have checked out then, I assume?"

"Yes sir Hokage-sama," the leopard-masked ANBU standing before him replied. "We had a Hyuuga give both the merchant and his son a look over. Slightly above average chakra systems for civilians and both are highly fit, but if they journeyed to the Westlands and back then it sounds like they do a lot of travelling."

"Alright then," Minato said, trusting his ANBU's assessment. He wouldn't really be able to get much more information on the two new recent citizens of his village unless he sent shinobi out to the farm the merchant claimed his brother ran, but so far he saw no need to expend the effort. In a bit if it warranted, but not now. "Dismissed, then."

The ANBU gave a nod before using a light-scale version of the **Shunshin** to leave the office. Minato stood up and stretched his body, the paperwork of the day nearing an end.

"Did you hear that, Mina-kun?"

Minato blinked, and looked at his hyper wife, who had been going through her own pile of paperwork before the ANBU member brought a report on their daughter's encounter with a new academy student. "Hear what, Kushi-chan?"

"Our daughter's found a boy! She's finally growing up! Oh, they leave home so quickly!" She wailed as she pushed her cheeks up.

The blonde Hokage just sighed at the wacky antics of his wife, who had been like this since the day he first saw her in his Academy class. "I just assumed you were going to comment that you were right about the Namikaze curse, except this time it was our daughter who fell in love with a red-head, not one of our sons."

"Oh. Right. That too." She waved it off, as if her theory that every Namikaze son also fell in love with a redhead hadn't just worked the other way as well. "Just you watch dear, Takato or Ken will bring home a redhead for himself."

"If you say so, honey," Minato meekly replied as he looked through the transcript of the conversation between Kasumi and this Kaen boy that the ANBU had written out. There was nothing out of the ordinary, but..."Hmm, strips of meat and fat cooked on a grill? This 'bacon' sounds rather unusual, but that might be worth checking out..."

* * *

_**So you've decided, have you? **__The disembodied voice of Kaen, the entity known as Kyuubi no Kitsune, asked his voice. __**What you plan on doing in this world, I mean.**_

_Yes, she replied. This loop seems like it might be fun to stay around in Konoha...but it's been far too long since we've travelled the world together. I still haven't given up on finding a way out of these loops._

_There was a pause, before Kaen's voice rumbled again. __**Kasumi. What do you plan on doing if you find a way to actually end the loops?**_

_I plan to end it, obviously, she mentally told him. But...I hesitate about it._

_**Oh?**__ The bodiless kitsune asked. __**Why is that?**_

_It was the same argument they had over and over again. It was just semantics now, but she rolled off the words all the same. Every reality we visit, I try to help make it better before I end up having to leave. Over a hundred and fifty worlds are better off for it, I think, but if I had the tenacity to continue like this forever, how many more could I save?_

_And again Kaen gave the same response, starting off with a sigh. __**And you know the likelihood is that there are infinite realities. I've given you the theory before on this, that the result of every choice ever made results in a new universe splitting off.**_

_I know that! She shouted, before her presence meekly retreated. I'm sorry, Kaen. I didn't mean to yell, it's just that...my very first life, as Uzumaki Naruto, I rejoiced in seeing the peace I brought to the world. Then the second time, I did it again. And so forth, and so forth, until finally I didn't do global peace anymore, but instead settled into a more passive role, while still trying to be a good influence to the world. But I don't have the same mental capabilities as you do. I'm in an up mood now, but one of these days I'm going to swing back into depression, and I don't know if I can handle another depression period._

_The Kyuubi could sympathise. He had seen just how much of a wreck she had been for a few lives before she had finally gotten her constitution back together. Sex, cuddling, companionship had been barely enjoyable at the time, but he had stuck by her throughout that whole period. Uzumaki Naruto, Namikaze Kasumi, whoever, she just wasn't the same without the youthful exuberance that Uzumaki Naruto had radiated, that could never be corrupted, until it had been. With nervous courage, he spoke up. __**You know, Kasumi...I love you.**_

_Kasumi looked up, and frowned at his words. Yes, she said, I know that. We've been lovers and companions for long enough that I know that. Why, what are you thinking, Kaen?_

_The old fox paused, before he continued. __**I followed you through the loops at first with curiosity. Even if I was still sealed, at least I was still alive. Then, I became your pillow to cry on, before finally your friend and lover. You've been a fine mother for my kits, me a fine one for yours when I was the vixen. I once didn't want to die, but I think ten thousand years is more than enough time for me. **__He sighed. __**I will follow you in whatever path you wish to take. You were the one who changed me, after all. **__He gave her a mental hug as reassurance._

_Kasumi blanked out for a few minutes, before returning back to conscious thought. You know, fox, she remarked, I never knew you had it in you to be so sappy. A snicker. But you're right. I've enjoyed life in the loops, even if life is finally beginning to wear down on me. But I'll wait until I find a way out before deciding what to do. For now, however, I just want to figure out why we're going to a new world every time we die._

_**Agreed**__, Kaen nodded his assent. __**Enough of that depressing talk. You said you wished to travel. Where were you planning on heading?**_

_I still intend to get out of these loops, Kaen-kun, she said, and the demon's heart sank back down from his throat. The affectionate address was a sign that the relationship was as strong as ever between the two of them. "But I've been thinking about it. When the Sage of Six Paths split the Juubi, the world wasn't destroyed or even suffered instability of any sort. That suggests the Juubi was not a celestial being, merely a monster of great and immense power._

_Kyuubi figured out what she meant in a second. __**No! You mean you want to...**_

_That's correct, she said, cutting him off. In all our lives, we have not once visited one of the celestial beings that watch over our world in the place of the kamis above and below. I suspect that if any entity can help us, it may be one of them._

_Silence was all that Kaen could offer for a few minutes, before he heavily sighed. It was a sign of assent that Kasumi had learned to identify over the years. Finally, the kitsune demon spoke again. __**I still get to jump your bones in this world, right? Because seriously, I seem to have been really deprived in this dimension.**_

_Ya bet, ero-kitsune, she replied boisterously. If it weren't for the awesome sex you provided me with I would've gone insane all those years ago._

_It took him a considerable amount of control to not just pull her into her mindscape, change their ages so they were sexually mature, and then fuck like horny rabbits. The first four years until she sexually matured (and he, as well, when he was unsealed) were a downtime they had agreed to take, but damn if his vixen wasn't testing his patience right now. Yes, he would definitely be teasing her with his tails when they got the that point in their relationship again, oh yes..._

_

* * *

_

**And finished. That was a bit exciting. It's funny. I write a little bit of my author notes before I completely finish this chapter. I consistently remark that so-and-so chapter was below my 6k-7k word mark that I usually achieve, only to have it backfire on me when I hit that mark by the time I finish.**

**Now, I dunno if I'm coming on a bit too strong or not with the O.C.s, but it has to be understood that I intend to do For Want of A Nail properly. If something changes in the timeline before the oldest of the Rookie Twelve was conceived, then that has to have a ripple effect because if someone's ejaculation is even one second later than in Naruto's first world that means an entire new person is born. Other characters might die years before they did in canon as well – if, say, Hyuuga Hiashi died in the Third Great Shinobi War, that leads to major changes. Most of the time in fanfics it's alright to keep all the same characters because nobody needs to bother thinking about that since it's self-contained and in one single world, but here? I'm taking a realistic look at loops, so deconstruction. Naruto isn't exempt from this – every body he reincarnates into isn't a blond-haired blue-eyed Yondaime clone who was born on October 10th. He always is the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, and that means he can run the full gamut of possible genetic mixtures (as well as occasionally not be Yondaime and Kushina's kid). If anybody wants to know when the proverbial nail is in this loop, it should be about fifteen years before Kyuubi attack.**

**No smut for a couple of chapters in any case, fyi, though of course there will be the teasing and stuff going on in here. Once it comes about, expect a permanent rating change.**

**And to end, I know someone might comment that some of the humour doesn't fit if it's supposed to be 'serious'. I think it works as a meld – Kasumi/Naruto is fairly care-free in day-to-day life, but her main goal is figuring out the loops. **


End file.
